


We All Slip Up Sometimes...

by TheTriggeredHappy



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alcohol, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, basically i love putting my characters through pain, i could've been writing literally anything else, im not sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-26
Updated: 2015-11-26
Packaged: 2018-05-03 11:03:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5288312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTriggeredHappy/pseuds/TheTriggeredHappy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes Sans has bad days. When the bad days roll around, he just takes a walk to get something to eat and loiters for a few hours at Grillby's, hoping that it'll wear off eventually. Sometimes he loiters all day. Sometimes Papyrus has to come and get him, and make him go home before he falls asleep at the bar. And sometimes, very rarely, Grillby will have to call Papyrus because he did exactly that.</p><p>Sans has never gotten drunk like this before, though, and Grillby doesn't know how to help him back onto his feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We All Slip Up Sometimes...

**Author's Note:**

> [Wow why did I write this.  
> So I decided that Sans would 100% be the type to get drunk from time to time if it helped ease the pain, then I got a little carried away and wrote 1,000 and something words worth of fic for it hahaha I need to sleep instead of putting my favorite skele-son through such agony]

It was warm inside Grillby’s. The bar was mostly silent, but for the gentle crackling of flame and the tink of glass. Grillby had already cleaned up after most of the patrons from that day, and was now wiping down the booth by the jukebox. As they sat there, Sans staring a hole in the tabletop, glass in hand, and Grillby working with the patience of a thousand men, Lesser Dog and Greater Dog finally vacated their seat near the end of the bar where they had been playing cards, waving goodbye to Grillby (who simply nodded in response). As the door opened, Grillby’s flame crackled, bending slightly as cold swept over the room briefly. He went to their table, picking up glasses and poker chips with care.

 

There was a slight thunk from behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw that Sans now had his forehead on the tabletop. Grillby stilled for a moment before resuming in his quest to clean up after the dogs, who generally left a decent amount of rubbish in their wake. Once he had picked up everything and placed it where it needed to go, he went and stood opposite to Sans, arms folded across his chest.

 

It took several moments before Sans would lift his head, the lights of his pupils dim, blinking with disorientation. “Hey, Grillbyz. Grillbz.” His voice was thicker than normal, his baritone taking on a new waver to it. Grillby nodded at the glasses sitting next to Sans meaningfully. There were six. Sans had been there for nearly an hour, downing glass after glass. Sans looked at the glasses for several moments, then back down at the table.

 

“Y’know, it’s funny,” Sans said, in a voice that suggested nothing was funny. “You’re in here, this nice cozy little place where you work hard, and here I am, hardly ever working.” His grin remained in place, but his eyes didn’t match. Grillby gently moved to pick up the empty glasses, face as expressionless as ever, but his fire burned dimmer than usual. “And. It’s because I know, y’know?” Grillby looked at him, and Sans shook his head. “No, wait…” He thought hard for several moments. “That didn’t make sense, I… think I just said it wrong. Said. The wrong words. Worded it wrong. Yeah, that.”

 

Grillby watched as Sans returned to staring at the table. He went to the back and put the glasses in the sink before returning and standing across the bar from Sans again. He flickered in a way that seemed almost nervous. Sans looked up at him. “Yeah. It’s because I know what’s going on, and nobody else does, and… so you work hard. And also everyone else,” Sans said, as if several minutes hadn’t passed already. “So I look lazy, but… It doesn’t matter anyways. Because nothing matters.” Now Grillby was definitely concerned.

 

“You… you don’t need to work so hard, buddy,” Sans said. “It doesn’t matter anyways. I mean, I already gave up so… you can. You can also give up. And it won’t even matter.” Grillby was taken aback as Sans slammed his fist on the table, beginning to laugh hysterically. “It’s _hilarious_ , because…” He continued laughing, and Grillby had a feeling that nothing was funny still. By now, he was just laughing because he couldn’t do anything else.

 

He went back into the kitchen again, getting a glass of water. When he returned, Sans had laid his head back down on the bar, and his shoulders were shaking with what Grillby wasn’t sure was laughter. He stepped out from behind the bar, taking a seat beside the skeleton, placing down the glass gently. He leaned forward on his elbows, tapping Sans gently on the shoulder. He paused for a long moment as he tried to find the right words.

 

 _“Hey. Talk to me,”_  he said in a voice as soft as a flickering candle.

 

Sans took a deep, shaking breath, then followed it up with a long, feeble sigh. “You won’t remember whatever I say later on anyways,” he murmured, gentle sobs cutting into his words. “God, I must look pathetic. I’m sorry.”

 

 _“Sansy, c’mon.”_ There was a long moment as Sans tried to stop the flow of tears, wiping his sleeve across his face and sniffling quietly. He finally looked up at Grillby, and somehow, miraculously, was still smiling. Grillby wondered if it was even possible for him to stop.

 

“You gotta promise me something,” Sans said. Grillby nodded almost instantly. “Whatever I say here… anything I tell you… can you… can you just not tell anyone else I said it?”

 

Grillby hesitated for a long moment. Sans rubbed at his cheek with his sleeve, looking anxious.

 

“Please. If not for me, then for everyone else,” he pleaded. “I… they’ll worry. Everyone. Who… you tell would worry about me. If you told.”

 

Grillby didn’t have it in his heart to mention that they already did worry about him. Instead, he nodded carefully, deliberately.

 

“Okay. Yeah,” Sans said, sounding relieved. He stared at the glass of water for several moments, before gently picking it up and taking a sip, setting it back down just a little too hard. “I just… I don’t… I can’t care.” There was a pause as Sans thought hard about what to say. “I definitely WANT to. Care, I mean. I really want to care, but it _hurts,_ right… right here.” He patted against his chest with his palm. “So I can’t. I can’t afford to care.”

 

Grillby nudged the glass forward. Sans chugged down a third of it, and his eyes were tired as he set it back down. The bartender was pretty sure Sans didn’t notice that he was crying again.

 

“Do you ever have that? Where you know it hurts to care so you just don’t? I think I might just be crazy. I could just be completely out of my mind.” He hiccupped gently and Grillby felt his heart dropping just looking at the skeleton in front of him. He wasn't sure what he could say that would make Sans feel better in this situation. He'd never seen Sans so... un-cool like this. He'd always seemed so collected, so nonchalant about everything. But now? He wasn't sure what to think. “What if I just disappeared? What then?” Sans asked suddenly, snapping him out of his thoughts as he turned to look at him. “What if I just... just left and never came back. Nobody could ever find me and I'm just gone. What then? Who would even miss me, am I right?” He laughed, and it sounded so full of pain that Grillby felt as though nails were being slowly driven into his heart.

 

Either way, he didn’t like where this seemed to be going. He nudged the glass forward again. Sans paused for a moment before chugging down half of what was left in one go. Grillby barely stopped himself from taking out his handkerchief and wiping the tears off of Sans’s face, since he didn’t seem to have the energy to do it himself.

 

“I hate it.” He wasn’t sure that either of them knew what exactly Sans hated so much. There was a long pause again, and Grillby looked down at the bar, where his burning fingers were gently resting on the wood, yet somehow not setting it aflame.

 

“Can I…” Grillby waited patiently for Sans to figure out what he wanted to say. “Or… or can you, I mean… can you please… tell me how drunk I look right now. On a, uh, scale of 1 to 10.”

 

 _“Nine,”_ Grillby said calmly. Sans groaned.

 

“Papyrus’ll be _piiiiiissed,_ ” he muttered, rubbing at his eyes. “I’ve gone dry for like…” He calculated in his head, taking several moments of deliberation. “Months. Ish. And here I go again.” He cursed gently under his breath, and Grillby patted him on the back in what he figured was a comforting manner, and Sans can only barely hear him as he murmurs that everyone has bad days. We all slip up sometimes.

 

It was warm inside Grillby’s. The bar was mostly silent, but for the gentle crackling of flame and the tink of a nearly-empty glass of water. Grillby talked quietly with one of his closest patrons (he would go so far as to call him his friend), and was now sitting with him at the end of the bar near the jukebox. As they sat there, Sans staring a hole in the tabletop, wiping at his still-smiling face with his sleeve, and the fiery bartender listening to him with the kindness of a thousand souls, Papyrus was at home fretting with the ferocity of the average mother over the fact that his brother had not yet come back from Grillby’s (who quite simply did not know nor care about this fact at the time). As he later gently led Sans back home from his establishment with a hand on his elbow, Grillby’s flame crackled gently, bending slightly as wind flared up around him. He walked Sans home with very much caution and very little force, leaving him only when he knew he was left with someone who cared.

**Author's Note:**

> [Thanks for reading, kudos and comments are appreciated as they let me know if I'm doing well or need improvement, have a rad weekday or statistically less likely weekend everyone! Stay safe out there, drink responsibly.]


End file.
